MWC 2014 – Nokia Announces the Nokia X Family

Nokia used MWC to announce their jump into the low price point market with excellent hardware, Android AOSP operating system, and Microsoft services. They are doing this with three phones: the Nokia X, Nokia X+, and the Nokia XL. With these phones, Nokia is focusing on affordability and bringing the Nokia experience to first time smartphone owners.

They have placed the Nokia X family right between their Asha (feature phone) and Lumia (Windows Phone) lines. You can see the influence of both of these lines on the new devices. Doing this allows for existing Nokia Asha customers to be able to move into their first smartphone experience easily and comfortably and hopefully make them a lifelong customer. They also used this to their advantage, keeping things simple allows for an improved experience.

“It’s so distinctive, bold and direct. It’s a break from the confusion that you see elsewhere in phones at this price. The simplicity of the interface also means that it has a very low overhead on performance. Typically for a phone with all these features, you would expect a horrid battery life and a laggy interface in this segment, but that isn’t true of the X family at all.”

The Nokia X is the entry point into the group, and moving to the X+ and then the XL gives a slight bump each time. The X starts off with a 3MP rear camera and 512MB of RAM. The X+ comes with a bump up to 768MB of RAM and a 4GB microSD card. The Nokia XL then adds a 2MP front facing camera, bumps the rear camera to 5MP, adds flash and autofocus, and a 5 inch screen. The Nokia Full specs are listed below.

 

	Nokia X €89	Nokia X+ €99	Nokia XL €109
Screen	4-inch IPS LCD, 800 x 480px	4-inch IPS LCD, 800 x 480px	5-inch IPS LCD, 800 x 480px
RAM	512MB	768MB	768MB
Storage	Up to 32GB MicroSD	Up to 32GB MicroSD; 4GB card included	Up to 32GB MicroSD; 4GB card included
Rear camera	3-megapixel fixed focus	3-megapixel fixed focus	5-megapixel with autofocus and flash
Front camera	–	–	2-megapixel
Processor	8225 Qualcomm Snapdragon1GHz Dual Core	8225 Qualcomm Snapdragon1GHz Dual Core	8225 Qualcomm Snapdragon1GHz Dual Core
Networks	ESGM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900WCDMA 900 / 2100	ESGM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900WCDMA 900 / 2100	ESGM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900WCDMA 900 / 2100
Dimensions	115.5 x 63 x 10.4mm	115.5 x 63 x 10.4mm	141.3 x 77.7 x 10.8mm
Weight	128.66g	128.66g	190g
Standby time	2G = Up to 28.5 days3G = Up to 22 days	2G = Up to 28.5 days3G = Up to 22 days	2G = Up to 41 days3G = Up to 26 days
Talk time	2G = Up to 13.3 hours3G = Up to 10.5 hours	2G = Up to 13.3 hours3G = Up to 10.5 hours	2G = Up to 16 hours3G = Up to 13 hours

To most of us in the US, the specs on these phones will look very low end; however, it is important to remember that these phones are not meant for a subsidy based phone market. The new Nokia X family is intended to tap into the quickest growing phone segment in the world, and Nokia is going to use their name recognition to do it. Amit Patel, Vice President of Developer Relations stated that:

“this part of the smartphone (sub €100) is growing four times faster than any other part of the smartphone market and we are in the best possible shape to capture our share. The majority of the growth is coming from the emerging markets – Indonesia, Thailand, India, etc. – where we are already significantly present, especially with Nokia Asha. There’s already brand preference and brand loyalty for Nokia.”

Nokia is hoping that their customers that are already pleased with their basic phones will look towards Nokia when upgrading to their first smartphone. They are hoping that by bringing their solid hardware, Android AOSP, Microsoft services, and access to hundreds of thousands of Android apps will open the door into these growing markets.

It may seem odd that Nokia, after recently being acquired by Microsoft, would launch a new line of phones running Android. We need to look past this for a second to see that there are several very good reasons for Nokia to do this.

First and most importantly, they are replacing Google Services with Microsoft services. This still gets users onto their parent company’s services, hopefully for good. Nokia and Microsoft are hoping that this will serve as a stepping stone to the Lumia line and Microsoft services such as Outlook.com, Skype, and OneDrive.

Running AOSP also serves a much bigger need for Nokia, it attracts customers by attracting developers, and vice versa. By running Android, Nokia is allowing entry level smartphone owners access to hundreds of thousands of Android apps, something that Windows Phone cannot currently offer. It also gives developers access to millions of new customers, something any developer would like. Nokia is also focused on making it easy for any developer to get their app onto the Nokia Store.

“Those developers are our primary target audience. And, for them, we have made it really easy to bring their apps to Nokia Store. We provide an online tool called Nokia X Analyzer where you can drag and drop your app to see whether you’re 100% compatible, or whether you need to make some changes. In most cases, the majority of apps just work. If that’s the case, just publish your app into the Nokia Store and you’re done.”

Nokia also has another key advantage to attract developers: carrier billing. In most emerging markets people do not buy apps with credit cards, they use carrier billing. Nokia has agreements in place in over 60 markets with more than 160 carriers for carrier billing.

“Absolutely. One key area is in-app payments linked to operator billing. Taking India as an example, there are 1.2 billion people, around 350-million phones and 24-million credit cards. It’s clear that most people aren’t using credit cards for their in-app purchases. People are paying with operator billing. And we have ‘more than one’ operator billing deal in India.”

These carrier agreements will provide motivation for developers to ensure that their apps are in the Nokia Store. Nothing is better for business than access to a few more million potential customers.

Overall, Nokia may not have wowed many people in the US using a flagship device that they paid $99 for. But it is important to remember that here in the states we are the exception to the rule, as across most of the rest of the planet people pay full price for their phones, regardless of the country’s economic situation. And we do not need to even go into how our financial situation compares to the rest of the world’s. One of the keys to a successful business is to get your product into as many hands as possible. Period. And if you are able to make a profit on low end phones, even a small one, when you are looking at the potential of selling millions of them, that is a smart business move. Just look at Motorola and the Moto G.

Source: Nokia (1), (2), (3), (4)